Numerical simulation of magneto hydrodynamic (MHD)

turbulence in confined domains.

De Salah Neffaa

In this thesis we developed a Fourier pseudo-spectral code coupled with the volume penalization for the simulation of turbulent MHD flows with non-periodic boundary conditions. This method was validated with classical and academic test-cases. Then we studied the influence of the confinement with walls in a 2D configuration for decaying MHD and we found four decaying regimes which depend on the initial conditions. We also discussed the phenomenon of spontaneous rotation, or spin-up, in 2D non-axisymmetric geometries, originally discovered in hydrodynamic flows. We showed the influence of the Reynolds number and the magnetic pressure on this phenomenon. Finally, simulations of MHD flows in wall bounded three-dimensional domains were addressed. The first results concerning the simulation of decaying MHD turbulence in a cylinder imposing Dirichlet boundary conditions for both the velocity and the magnetic field showed the validity of the code and suggest good prospects for developing more physically justified boundary conditions for the magnetic field. (L'auteur).